Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald

Crimes of Grindlewald is about…nothing.
This plot is nothing.
It’s certainly not about Grindlewald or any crimes he may commit.

So in theory the plot is about the character of Creedance Barebone from the previous movie, who survived exploding at the end of the last one, because shut up, and is hunted by multiple people who are after his power.
The villains, led by the villain Grindlewald, want to harness his power for evil, and the heroes want to stop him, while a third party of Yusef Kama, played by William Nadylam, wants revenge for something he belives Creedance’s father did to his mother.
The plot revolves around this, with Creedence’s revelations and Kama’s search for revenge being based on this idea that Creedance is this person.
And it’s ultimately a lie.
This is an over two hour movie that effectively wasted both the time of the characters, and audience,
and this might be salvageable if this was a one off movie about misplaced revenge,
but it’s not.
It’s the second part of what is planned to by a pentalogy and it has no baring on the ongoing narrative.
By the end, nobody directly involved in this plot cares about any revelations, and having seen the sequel, it’s brought up all of once, only to sweep it under the rug.
Seriously, they retcon a connection so Kama cares about someone who died, only so they can take his memory away.
It is amazing how inept this was.

Not only that, but they ruined aspects from the previous movie.
If you read my review of Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, I talked about how I liked the romance between the characters Kowalski and Queenie.
The movie begins undoing the dramatic ending where Kowalski’s memory is wiped and separating the lovers, and has Queenie mind control him into marrying her.
They call it “enchanting”, but it’s not. It’s mind control and it’s character assassination of Queenie.
If the genders were reversed here, I guarantee people would be complaining about it (though it would make for a much better show. Seriously, watch Jessica Jones, thank me later).
It’s not even for a satisfactory reason; she isn’t portrayed as a villain or anything, but more a confused person struggling with her feelings, so it feels even more wrong because at least going full psychopath would be committing to the horrible act. I wouldn’t like it, but it would feel like a direction the writer wanted to take.
And I pray to every God that they didn’t have sex while he was like this, because I don’t even want to contemplate the grossness of witch rape on top of everything else.

The movie tries to distract the audience with characters from the Harry Potter movies and books, but there’s no insight and they don’t contribute more than cameos.

CONCLUSION

The plot is fluff that amounts to nothing, the way they have Queenie act like a villain for stupid reasons and a distinct lack of anything interesting makes this a terrible movie in my eyes that I have zero inclination to revisit.

It’s an unpleasant experience and one of the few movies that I honestly can’t think of anything I like about it.
Don’t let those two stars fool you; I wish I could justify scoring it less, but that would be unfair in my eyes.
Even if you liked this first, this is just trash.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

Fantastic Beasts: the secrets of Dumbledore follows the wizard Dumbledore’s efforts to stop his former lover Grindlewald from taking over the wizarding world.

I wasn’t a fan of the previous movies in this series, and sadly the same is true with this third entry.
It’s better than the previous movie, the Crimes of Grindlewald, but suffers the same issues that prevented me from enjoying that movie.

The main issue is the abundance of plot holes and irritating habit of wasting time; the first two thirds of this movie are spent pretty much wasting time. Nothing is accomplished, which the characters openly admit to, but that doesn’t make it better just because it was the intention. This is a two and half hour movie with barely enough actual plot to fill a feature length running time.

If there is an issue that frustrated me more than the superfluace, it’s the painfully inept world building.
The plot revolves around an election, but for what the movie doesn’t make clear. It’s for a Confederation of wizards, but we don’t know much about what this confederation does.
Do they superseed the leader so individual countries, because we do see that each nation has its own minister of magic. It appears to be a democratic election, but the voting is thrown out in favour of using a magical animal. Have the people already voted? If so, why aren’t they more angry? A character is arrested by German police at one point and sent to a jail where they await to die by a giant scorpion. He’s a foreign national and a civil servant; these people don’t see how this could cause issues diplomatically?
Things just happen because the plot needs them to, without any satisfactory explanation or resolution.
Two characters who joined the villain at the end of the last movie switch sides with very little convincing; one was preparing to kill Dumbledore, blaming him for being abandoned as a child, but all it takes is Dumbledore telling him its not his fault and he just takes him at his word. Again, because the plot needs him too.
And that’s not even getting into the retcons imposed; Grindlewald in the last movie escaped custody and went on to murder several wizard policemen, and his crimes are thrown out due to “lack of evidence”. It’s all just swept away because they changed their minds about what they wanted the plot to be. If there was a trial and we see how members of the jury or even the judge sympathise with his cause then that would be an explanation because it shows how much power he has politically, but the whole criminal thing is thrown away with a shrug.

The only part I enjoyed was the character of Albus Dumbledore; Jude Law brings a fatherly energy to the role that helps sell him as a younger version of the same character seen in the Harry Potter movies. His ability to dodge questions and manipulate people while also placing a genuine level of trust in them makes for a different kind of mentor; not necessarily darker but complicated, as he keeps people at arms length.
His conflict comes from the fact that he and Grindlewald were once lovers turned enemies, and Law does well to portray a man clearly at odds with what his heart wants and what he knows is right.
The opening scene does well to portray this with little more than innuendo and physical acting, and led me to believe that the movie would be better. However it ultimately ended but being downhill from there.

Grindlewald was a missed opportunity; Mads Mikkelsen again does his best with what he has, with subtle facial expressions that say louder than worlds how he feels, but I feel that the script gives him no meat to work with.
The characters of Newt Scamander and Jacob Kowalski too feel wasted; Eddie Redmayne and Dan Fogler bring the same likeable energy to their roles as in the previous movies, but like the second instalment this movie doesn’t give them much to work with.
Newt in particular feels like a character written for the first movie that plays to his strengths as a social awkward animal lover, but was forced into this new plot without a plan of what to do with him.

CONCLUSION

While better than the previous movie, the third Fantastic beasts movie is a giant disappointment.
Good characters aren’t utilised well, half the plot amounted to nothing and the plot holes really pile up that it drowns out the only part I liked, which was the character of Dumbledore.

This movie felt like a waste of my time, and I fear it may be a waste of yours.
And after three chances all disappointed me, I am officially done with this franchise.
I don’t care to see the remaining movies in this story.
I’m out.
Do yourself a favour and just watch the Harry Potter movies instead.